Saturday, October 25, 2008

Experimentation


I'm experimenting with Yes! canvas, using the trio of pears reference from the virtualsketchdate blog. Yes! is advertised as being able to handle any kind of wet media. These are both small pieces, 8 x 6 inches.

The first image is the Sharpie marker version. I'm not too happy with the makers on canvas. They took too long to dry. I even let some of the layers dry overnight, but when I put more maker on top, it dissolved the layer underneath. This could be a good thing if you want to mix the colors, but I was looking more for the previous layers to act as an underpainting. But it is much more graphic than what I normally do.


This is the watercolor version. Not too thrilled with this one either. It was quite difficult to get the watercolor to stick to the canvas. Just the least bit of water dissolved the pigment right down to the white canvas. I had to let the watercolors thicken up until they were about like acrylics. I used lots and lots of watercolor here. It's not exactly brushed on, but more pounced on with an old brush. This was the only way I could get the paint to "stick" to the canvas.

I can see that there are possibilities here. Maybe I need a different kind of watercolors. I started with Windsor/Newton straight out of the tube, but I ended up using Yarka semi-moist pan colors. It was easier to maintain the viscosity of the paint. The white is watercolor gouache and as you can see, it picked up the underlying shadow color, even though I waited 24 hours before putting it on the canvas.

It might be me, because watercolors are not my media of choice. I've painted in oils and acrylics in the past, but I found the Yes! canvas to be difficult to handle.

However, I love the fact that this image is now on canvas. I've sprayed it with fixative and I think that it could be sprayed with Krylon clear to completely seal it. Then it could be framed without glass - something I can't always do with my colored pencil works.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Pear Trio



Here is my drawing for October's virtual sketch. I'm working on doing more graphite work. This is in my sketchbook and was shaded with a pure graphite pencil and brush.